Health Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[Dr. Craig Hudson]

I would just to add that most of my investors are not institutional investors. I have farmers and dentists. I pool the money together from a bunch of people. If there were some way of protecting those people, because they're taking a significant risk when they're investing in a company like ours....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Craig Hudson]

Let me tell you. A psychiatrist would.... It's really a bad idea.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Craig Hudson]

The chance of that being successful are not high, but fortunately in this case it is. But if there were some way of protecting those investors...because I think that's also something that's not seen, that Canadians can be entrepreneurial, that they want to invest in companies, but they need to have a way to protect themselves a little bit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you. That's an extremely good point, and I don't think we've heard that one before, or not put in that way.

We'll now go on to Ms. Block and Mr. Lizon. I understand that you're going to be sharing your time. Who would like to begin? Ms. Block?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Sure.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I would like to welcome all of our guests here today. It's been very informative.

I would just like to make a couple of observations on what we've heard.

I echo our chair's earlier comments when she said she had to turn and ask the clerk for some definitions, because we hear about discovery research, basic, pure, applied, translational: it can be mind-boggling when you hear all of the terms and try to figure out what we are talking about. I've heard many people talk about the need to bridge the gap between research and commercialization, and I'm assuming that's the valley of death.

Finally, I heard someone say that we needed to coordinate our regulatory pathway, and I guess that's what I want to zero in on, because I probably only have about three minutes left now. I recognize that there are probably regulatory barriers right now that keep us from being able to get to where we need to get to. I'm just wondering if any of you would like to address that issue.

[Dr. Albert Friesen]

There are two things, quickly.

One is, as I said, that it's impossible for the health protection branch to have the expertise to really do a good regulatory process of all drugs that the FDA sees. So they should coordinate and work together with the FDA and other agencies and save money.

Secondly, I just saw in the paper again today that we have 11 securities commissions across the country. There should be one. For somebody to raise the money.... I know that they've been working at it and it's been difficult to get, but that's an absolute no-brainer.

Also, coordinate the health protection branch with the FDA and the European EMA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay.

[Dr. D. Lorne Tyrrell]

I just have a brief comment. Another example of regulation is ethics approval for studies. Every hospital has to give an ethics approval. We have one Alberta health authority, and we should have one approval for ethics. Drug companies have moved clinical trials out of this country. It represents 3% of the world's sales, but we have such a problem with ethics and getting ethics approval in all the hospitals, by the time we get them, the studies are done. Many companies are not bothering to come to Canada any more because of the ethics issues not being well regulated. There are much better ways we could get that done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Lizon.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you, panellists, for coming here this afternoon.

Madam Chair, I will start with a question for Dr. Brindle. In your presentation you showed us a graph of how the prices of drugs were going out of control. That curve looks like a hyperbolic or parabolic shape, whatever it is, but can you maybe expand on it and just tell us what should be done, in your view, to bring it back under control? Could you maybe say a few words on this topic?

[Dr. Ian D. Brindle]

I think it's a real conundrum and it's not the price of drugs, but the cost of bringing a drug to market. So it's not how much—

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

That's correct, yes.

[Dr. Ian D. Brindle]

So it's not how much the public pays, but rather how much the drug company pays to basically bring that drug onto the market. Because of the regulatory framework, because of the fears of the drug companies and, to some extent, because of the way that drugs are chosen to go to market, there are some difficulties. For example, people my age are taking 10 milligrams of Lipitor every day. The drug companies love people like me because I take 10 milligrams of Lipitor every day.

So there are those drugs that have payback. There are other drugs that don't, and I think there's a distraction that can come from this because, thank goodness, my cholesterol is being controlled by Lipitor every day. But as I mentioned, there are other therapies, and maybe our pumpkin seed therapy, compared with the cost of Lipitor and so on, is better.

I think the costs of developing drugs will continue to be high because of the regulatory framework and, certainly, I agree that duplicating the efforts of the FDA to approve things just puts a barrier in the way of progress.

But I'd come back to what I said before. You're doing this balance between the cost of drugs, which is continuously going to be high because of that regulatory framework, and the cost of hospital treatments and various other medical treatments. We're basically playing a sort of red queen game, where you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place. Those are the problems that we're facing. That's why I think that preventative medicine may be a way to go, so that we can eliminate the need for some of these drugs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

One more minute.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Dr. Hudson, with your pumpkins and pumpkin seed idea, you mentioned that you have to bring them now from Wisconsin. Why is that?

[Dr. Craig Hudson]

I had to find an organic source of the pumpkin seed, and I'm working on that now, but in order to get the best price, the highest margins basically, I should sell an organic product into the natural health market. So I have to find certified organic farmland where people will grow pumpkin seed, and it takes a number of years for that to happen. So I'm working with some local farmers now to make that happen, but it will take many years to develop that kind of market.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Are you suggesting that we're running out of organic land?

[Dr. Craig Hudson]

Not at all. The concern I have is that farming in Canada is very good and very productive but they grow a lot of low-margin crops. They grow a lot of corn. Again, they don't make a lot of money from that.

What I would want people to think about is that you can grow a high-value crop and make a higher margin on it, but you've got to protect it with technology and intellectual property. The sorts of things we think about with drugs, we should be thinking about with functional foods. There's a more rapid time to market. We narrow the valley of death. There are higher margins for our crops and, really, Canadian farmers are seen as very good farmers throughout the world. If I told you I were buying pumpkin seeds from China, you would have some suspicions. You might, I don't know. Maybe you would. But if I tell you I'm buying pumpkin seeds from southwestern Ontario, you would feel pretty secure in eating them.

That's what I'm saying. We don't do enough of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Doctor. Very good comments. Very good questions.

We're now going into our second round of questions and time is going quickly. They're five minutes each, and we're going to begin with Dr. Sellah.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank all of our guests. I have learned a great deal. What you said about pumpkin seeds alone has taught me something. I will eat them a lot.

Mr. Friesen, I was reading your presentation. I'm interested in the sixth item, where you talk about reorganizing the health care system to fit the current and future reality by retaining the one payer. However, you suggested that this should be done by opening up, organizing and regulating a multi-provider system, and you gave MPIC as an example—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Excuse me, Dr. Sellah. If you'll just pause for moment, we have a translation difficulty and I want everybody to be able to hear you.

Are we okay now? Thank you.

Dr. Sellah, please continue.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I'll take it from the top.

Mr. Friesen, I was just saying that I have read your presentation. Under the sixth item you put forward for improving the system, you suggested reorganizing the health care system to fit the current and future reality by retaining the one payer, but by opening up, organizing and regulating a multi-provider system. Then you provided the example of MPIC.

Could you tell us more about the MPIC example? In addition, I would like to know what you mean by “the one payer”.

I will ask my second question right away.

I was really surprised to hear that it was difficult to access other provinces' databases. However, some witnesses have told us that Canada was a land rife with pilot projects, that there were many best practices and that the goal was to make all Canadian provinces benefit from those practices. And here I'm being told that the data is not accessible. I am wondering why.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to begin to answer those in-depth questions?

Dr. Friesen.